xml-dev - RE: NaN or NAN ?

[David LeBlanc <whisper@oz.net>]

I believe the authoritative reference for this is the IEEE floating point
standard which is where the term first came from (I believe). I think NaN is
correct. It means Not a Number.

Dave LeBlanc

-----Original Message-----
From: Dan Mabbutt [mailto:Seigfried@msn.com]
Sent: Monday, December 18, 2000 5:51 PM
To: xml-dev@lists.xml.org
Subject: NaN or NAN ?


Lo, after many moons of lurking this group, I might, just might, have found
something worth posting.

I'm doing some technical editing for a web page, and I came across a
reference to both "NaN" and "NAN" on the same page.  I wasn't completely
sure which was correct, and the rule is, "When in doubt, go to the rules." I
decided to go to the W3C site and find out.

Surprise, surprise!  The W3C site has multiple references both ways too!

The majority of the references are "NaN" so that's what I'm guessing is
correct.  But can the August Experts (or even the December experts) on this
list confirm my guess?

(To prove my assertion for yourselves, use the W3C public search to look for
references to "nan" and then search each page for the same string.)

Dan Mabbutt
Seigfried@msn.com